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" I am an independent film-maker first and foremost. I have always cut my own cloth. "

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" The dignity of everyday life - the beauty of it, the attitude of it - is what I live around. And it is never on screen, and it is certainly never associated with Africa. If we see Africa at all, it is always used as a backdrop: a big blob of a continent rather than a specific street or a country or a place. "

" For seven years, I made films in the cinema verite tradition - photographing what was happening without manipulating it. Then I realised I wanted to make things happen for myself, through feature films. "

" I am still attracted to stories about people who are considered to be on the outside of society. I still seek inspiration from those stories. "

" I came from the school of cinema verite documentaries, which was: Do not manipulate reality as it was happening but create a narrative in the editing room. "

" My family is almost exactly like the one in 'Monsoon Wedding'. We are very open, fairly liberal, loud people. "

" We never see the fancy schools with the blazers and ties in films about Africa! But, in fact, we too have class and elitism. "

" We all know the power of film; we all know there's almost nothing more powerful than to see people on film that look and talk like you, like we do. "

" I listen to Ustad Vilayat Khan's 'Raga Khamaj' and 'Raga Jaijaiwanti' virtually every morning, a lot of Abdullah Ibrahim, Michael Kiwanuka, Savages, and contemporary Ugandan pop. "

" Sitting in America, we never get to know the other side in any kind of believable way. We have so many movies about Iraq, Afghanistan, and this and that, but there is never a character from that side. "

" With Vietnam, the Iraq War, so many American films about war are almost always from the American point of view. You almost never have a Middle Eastern character by name with a story. "

" Truth is much stranger than fiction and, often, much more powerful. "

" You've got to understand that in Bollywood, every actor is an instrument, and yet a human being. They come to the set with a set agenda, believing, 'This is who I am, this is what I want, and no, I am not going to become that character you want me to.' "

" Humility is not a trait I often associate with America. "

" The film-school mantra is that if you don't tell your own stories, nobody will. "

" I immediately was captured by 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist.' It gave me a springboard into contemporary Pakistan and a dialogue between Pakistan and the rest of the world. "

" I'm inspired by people that are marginal. I'm excited by their resilience. "

" Never treat anything you do as a stepping stone. Do it fully, and follow it completely. "

" Creative freedom is an imperative for me, but it doesn't really exist in a Hollywood game. "

" In our house we say 'adolescence' is a western word. We don't believe in it. "

" Post 9/11, so much has changed in New York that it does not give you that homely feeling which it did before. "

" It's only at this age that I can say the word 'art' without flinching. "

" It gave me a lot of pleasure and pride that 90 percent of the crew for 'Monsoon Wedding,' and most of my film, are women. We get the work done, you know, much lesser play of ego... And I really believe in harmony, I believe in working in a spirit of egolessness and that the film is bigger than all of us. "

" It took me three years to learn to dress in the American way, especially in winter. That was just like me. I barely wear socks even now. "

" We have to realize only in communication, in real knowledge, in real reaching out, can there be an understanding that there's humanity everywhere, and that's what I'm trying to do. "

" A lot of us feel that we are against the war; we are against profiling and are against what is happening. We are tired of war in every manifestation. American people do not all believe in what the government has been doing. "

" It is shocking that the screen does not reflect the way the world is and the diversity in the world... What the world really looks like should be on screen, and it isn't. "

" India somehow constantly rivets and inspires me, and I feel very relieved to have come from this country which has a very 'lifeist' approach to living fully, no matter what one has or doesn't have. "

" I love the idea that it doesn't take one person only to achieve your potential. It takes a village, it takes a community, a street, a teacher, a mother. "

" I'm the bullheaded type, and I really don't give up if I fall in love. "

" I dream of living off the land completely - in vain, because the monkeys eat everything. "